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The Mighty Stream Slows

THE MIGHTY STREAM SLOWS

The mighty stream slows
The Lines lose their force
Poetry is a forced effort again
And the Music no longer has any meaning.

Poems are prose
And nothing that one does
Can really write them
Again.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Lost The Music Of My Poetry

I LOST THE MUSIC OF MY POETRY

I lost the music of my poetry
I tried to hear it again
In old lines of my own,
Or in the lines of more musical poets-
Tehillim and Kohleth
Stevens and Keats, Hopkins Wordsworth and Dickinson-
Shakespeare-

But I heard no music of my own
Perhaps I have never really had
A music of my own.

Perhaps all I have had
Is what I have here-

Short lines of prose
Which also have their rhythm-
But are not true poems
And certainly do not sing together
As my soul would.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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Sonnet: Poetry versus Prose

Some write their poetry almost like prose;
The two are not diff’rent in any way?
How can a thorn ever become a rose?
The grain is grain; the hay remains but hay!

But some write prose with emotions afilled;
Or add some verses in-between the lines;
One can’t become the other, howev’r skilled;
How can the noon be dawn although sun shines?

The functions poems do, prose can never,
Where right words placed, give music and rhythm;
But of the two, the poet’s cleverer;
His work is shorter, neater, and more trim.

All praise the bard; his glory’s forever!
For prose can’t stand the test of time ever!

6-25-2002 by Dr John Celes

poem by John Celes
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The History Poems Have Not Been Written

The history poems have not been written
The poems after Milosz
The Wallace Stevens poems will never be written
I can’t come close
I have tried the Blake poems
But of course I am not near them either
I would like to the ironic intellectual poems
I might be able to do them
I could do a kind of surrealistic association mind poem a prose poem
But I don’t like that very much
The poems of Jerusalem have not been good enough
Poems of propaganda are awkward and unacceptable
The small poems that tell of my life
They are for me the chance at real poetry
And I will continue as best I can with them
The American poems I have not yet found the idiom for
I can be epigrammatic in Emerson Thoreau fashion
But not with the hard New England observing eye
Borges poems I love
And the stories of mind and literature
Making the drama of a life of a storyteller
Interest me
But I doubt I could truly do them well
Imitation can only take one so far
And through it one may lose one’s way entirely
I can really do only what I am
Not the Dickinson poems nor the Hopkins poems nor the Wordsworth poems nor the Keats poems nor the Amichai poems nor the poems of many others whose poetry I love
The Biblical poems have been tried
The poems of cosmic and scientific reflection
I could try to improve them
There are too many different kinds of poems to write
And I cannot write almost all of them
This is another poem about poems and poetry
I have written many for a long time now
Perhaps I need to go elsewhere and write in a new way
A way I have not dreamed or even remotely understood possible before.
The poems of the unknown poetry await me
I will go on but I am not sure now I know in which wa

poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Write Poetry

I write not poetry for the poor
for tears from their swelled up eyes
smudge and erase my words,

I write poetry not for the rich
for the splotches from their fat and cheese
hide my lines of wise,

I write poetry for not men to read
for in their skirmishes, poems are trashes
like beans spilled in pond full of slush,

I write poetry for the men not to read
for poems are little words, little music
little cry that the men cant touch or destroy,

poem by Saranyan Bee
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My Poetry Has Become Prose

MY POETRY HAS BECOME PROSE

My Poetry has become Prose
I have lost my music
Nothing sings in me;
I have lost my richness of meaning
Nothing in me is not linear, flat and clear.
I have lost my poetry
And have become a writer of Prose
In pseudo Poetic Form-
There is in me no Line
That says more than itself-
I am Prose now not Poetry
And yet still secretly hoping
My inner irony will
In contradicting me
Save me.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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My poems is not Poetry

My Poems are not Poetry
Poetry rhythm is essential part
Communicative act of rhythms
Where words created music
An effect on the reader’s and listener
Words beginning with the same letter
And achieve a poetically effect.

My Poems has no rhythms
For the first time I don’t know
What to say and how to show.
Many words is not my style
Let me say, I like your smile
I don’t think I should like you,
Unfortunately I do.

I'm not sure now how to write
I lost my idea how, where words
Are used in away similar
Creating Music, where you find
Languages of rhymes

I write Prose but not Poetry
Using a regular rhythm
Where vast majority
Of languages spoken and written.

I try to be a barn, the muses were believed and inspire
I try to hard without success,
you already know, I guess.
Anyhow, it doesn’t matter
Usually I do not write
Things like this, I never tried,
for the first time I don’t know
what these lines should say or show.

Allegory, metaphor equated
Meaning lie outside the narrative
Acrostic phase when read together
Alliteration words same letter for poetical effect
Satire is a form of humour
Limerick is a short humorous poem.
And Honestly, I don’t regret
Things I did and words I said.

7. January 2008

poem by Mary Wismer
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The Poems Became The Story Of My Inner Life

THE POEMS BECAME THE STORY OF MY INNER LIFE

The poems became the story of my inner life-
A series of confessions-

Often simple and direct
They seemed to lose their poetry-

I wrote them and I write them as I need to
I do not know if their rhythm is real
Or only prose-

I write them as poetry
Because this is what I am and have now-

Still the overwhelming anxiety I have now suggests
I always in them tell only a small part of the story
As if the feeling inside
Is always more than any poetry that pretends to express and represent it –

If I doubt the value of this poem and doubt the value of all my poetry and doubt my own value, poetry or not, and doubt and doubt-
Then certainly ‘doubt’ is one keynote of my inner life and story.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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In The Manner Of Borges I Write Poems In My Old Age

IN THE MANNER OF BORGES I WRITE POEMS IN MY OLD AGE

In the manner of Borges I write poems in my old age
And dream that they are not only imitations
Of poems written by others
When we all were young.

Instead I go on now in the darkness of the night
Because the fear of what will be
Is always so deep in me
It does not need Poetry or Happiness or any other Meaning
Outside itself.

We are small sands drifting on the edge of stars
Lesser beings of a time we will never know
All that we have done comes back to us over and over again
As if we never were

I don’t believe I will ever write Borges lines
He wrote them in his own imagined words
And I must in my own little life
Suffer to the end of time
All I have not been
And never will be.

God Who is Good
God of Love
You gave me so much
You did not have to give me Poetry also.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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Every Poem Is Another Effort At Poetry

EVERY POEM IS ANOTHER EFFORT AT POETRY

Every poem is another effort at Poetry
Will it belong or not?
And what is Poetry?
And who owns it
And who cares ultimately?

We are criers in the night
Dawn- breaking whisperers of Awe
We make of our little lives
A gantze gescheft.
No one is where we are
When we are alone,
And even the once beautiful stars
Have given way for us
To cold measurements of deeper darkness.

Let us say we know how to pray
And some of us do
Let us say that for some there is God waiting to answer
Let us listen.

The poems and Poetry and who and what we are
Go on in ways we do not know.

I write these lines as congregant
Whose love for Beauty
Has been gratified
Through the the singing in prayer
in the synagogue Yakar
Yerushalayim.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poems I Write Give Meaning To My Life

The poems I write give meaning to my life.
But what are they for others?
Are they Poetry or just the sentences I happen to think?
The Poems I write give meaning to my life
But only in the time I am writing them
What they are afterward
Does not truly depend on me?
Meaning it seems is momentary for me
And the higher meaning of what will endure
Is a question I by myself however I write
Cannot answer.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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Will I Still Write Poems When I Can No Longer Publish Or Post Them?

Will I still write poems when I can no longer publish or post them?
Of course I will-
I wrote poetry for years
when I knew their only readers were hoped- for ones-

I will write my poems
because they are my soul
my confessiion
my expression of deepest feeling
because they give meaning to my life-

I will write poemw as long as I can-
publish or post or not-

poem by Shalom Freedman
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There is poetry even in prose, in all the great prose which is not merely utilitarian or didactic: there exist poets who write in prose or at least in more or less apparent prose; millions of poets write verses which have no connection with poetry.

quote by Eugenio Montale
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Prose-Poetry

Once prose and poetry existed side by side
Two styles of literature, each with its bound
Jealously guarded by the literati
Lest prose masquerades as poetry.

The First World War smashed all fetters,
Soldiers wrote heart-rending poetic letters
To sweethearts, friends, fathers and mothers.
Newspapers published their anguish and horrors

The literati classed them as prose
And turned up their nose
At such a new trend of mongrelised poetry;
But the public gave it name and identity
Prose-poetry began to gain respectability.

Prose-poetry is a contradiction in terms,
An oxymoron; a paradox of many forms.
When well written, words flow as though in rhyme
Thought and syntax together dance with rhythm.

Some pen few lines haphazardly,
String words together arbitrarily,
Flit between thoughts randomly,
Structure their poems casually.

They want us to see them as thinkers
In fact, they are just wearing blinkers.
If only they could see their folly
They’d stop abusing prose-poetry.

poem by Isam Hussain
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The Lights Are Going Out

Theres a painting on the wall
That wasnt there at all
Ten minutes ago
Theres a girl who walks the line
Shes with you all the time
She wont let go
And I cant see me with another girl
As everything slows down across the world
The lights are going out
One by one
Across the world
With faces turning sown
The night will hide the sound
She comes to you
And I cant see me with another girl
As everything slows down across the world
In a harbor safe from storm
She waits for darkened forms
Shes seen you there
And time and time again
You hear her call your name
She calls for you
And I cant see me with another girl
As everything slows down across the world
The lights are gong out
One by one
Across the world
The lights are going out
One by one
Across the world

song performed by by Omd
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dead To My Poem

DEAD TO MY POEM

Dead to my poem-
Dead to the poems of others-
Dead to poetry
In any way at all-

Into another way of feeling:
Dry- nervous- anxious- fearful.
Prose is my soul
Empty small literal flat prose.

Flat prose
Lines too flat to even need paraphrase
No poem no poetry
Prose.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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There Will Come A Day / When I No Longer Write

THERE WILL COME A DAY/ WHEN I NO LONGER WRITE

There will come a day
When I no longer write-
No dream of poetry
And no new poems will appear-
The world will have many new poems
As it always does-
But mine will not be among them-
As in life so in poetry
We are in our own small worlds all- only to ourselves-
‘Horseman pass by’ said Yeats as his good- bye.
But who was Yeats,
And who am I?

poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poems Went Away

THE POEMS WENT AWAY

The poems went away.
Nothing inside.
An empty will for poetry
Forcing words on the page,
Words without music
Without resonance
Without great implication
Meaning.

Write, write, write
Lest you die.
And the words themselves
A kind of desperate uphill catching of breath
On the page.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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My Preference

Modern proponents of free form.
Do not accept that poetry
has certain rules and must conform.
Or it becomes mere anarchy.

Anything goes just will not do.
It’s either poetry or prose.
One must give credit where it’s due
They both have merit I suppose.

Prose poetry cannot exist.
An oxymoron obviously
but modern writers will insist
that what they write is poetry.

They aren’t content to call it prose
well written and quite beautiful.
Care taken with the words they chose
describing something wonderful.

Although so many writers try.
There’s very few achieve their aim.
They do not stop to wonder why
But simply write more of the same.

Make no attempt to learn the rules
Meter and rhyme a mystery
they lack the simple basic tools
You need for writing poetry.

A poem is a message to
transmit your ideas and your thoughts.
So other folks can share them too.
If you can write them as you ought.

Simplicity and clarity
are prerequisites for our art.
The finest kinds of poetry
are written from the poets heart.

Mere strings of words in random lines
are neither prose nor poetry.
Each of us knows what he defines
as being his idea of poesy.

I rest my case I make no plea
I merely state my preference.
Applicable only to me
I do not wish to cause offence.

6-Jan-08

poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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The Mighty

Walking this high road are warriors from an olden time
Curse on this land and the days far behind us
Dragons weve slain, rescued many maidens fair
And no man ever dared break our stride
Or the brotherhood that binds us.
Brothers are we, marching on the roads of time
From this broken land and the days that defined us
All men are free, justice is a sword we hold
Trusting in the knights noble vow
In the brotherhood that binds us.
When the broken are strong
(Freak the mighty, Freak the mighty)
When the beaten are proud
(Freak the mighty, Freak the mighty)
When the twisted can stand
(Freak the mighty, Freak the mighty)
When the silenced can laugh
(Freak the mighty, Freak the mighty)
When the hunted have turned
(Freak the mighty, Freak the mighty)
When the tortured are sane
(Freak the mighty, Freak the mighty)
When the blinded still stare
(Freak the mighty, Freak the mighty)
When the poisoned remain
(Freak the mighty, Freak the mighty)
When the voiceless can sing
(Freak the mighty, Freak the mighty)
And the shackled can run
(Freak the mighty, Freak the mighty)
And this downtrodden man holds his face to the sun
(Freak the mighty, Freak the mighty)
Well be walking high above the world.
(Freak the mighty, Freak the mighty)
Our legend will say
Freak the mighty
Freak the mighty
Freak the mighty
Freak the mighty

song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Why Does A Poem/ Not Want To Begin

WHY DOES A POEM /NOT WANT TO BEGIN

Why does a poem
Not want to begin?
Why does Silence say
It should be all and all?

Why against this
Must ‘Will’ and ‘Ambition’ come?
And force lines
As these lines forced now?

Because I am a lonely man
Who has nothing to do with himself?

But write poems
Which he dreams
Someone someday
Will read.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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